Committee to Protect Civil discussed the results of the year, describing it as a continuation and deepening of the crisis in all spheres, including human rights. After the amnesty of a large group of political prisoners in the spring, followed by a new wave of arrests of civil society activists and the courts over them, such as the court trials in the "Nardaran case", the authors of the graffiti on the monument to Heydar Aliyev, the case of the Popular Front activist Fuad Gahramanli and Faig Amirov. The year was also marked by another tightening of legislation in the field of media, Internet users and in general against individual freedom. In the economic sphere, according to the expert economist Gubad Ibadoglu, the situation has deteriorated in all directions, including the fall of the manat, the decline in living standards, rising unemployment, the country's external debt, reducing foreign exchange reserves.
"According to official data, in the past year 50,000people have lost jobs, but when you consider that the average family consists of 4.5 persons, this means serious financial problems for 220 thousand people…" he said, noting, that millions of people have been affected by the crisis.
During the discussions, the committee members agreed that without the restoration of civil liberties in the country, to bring about change for the better will not succeed. In this sense, it puts into question the implementation of the road maps of strategic social and economic reforms announced by the government for the next year.
A separate topic of the meeting was the Karabakh issue, its condition in 2016. Chairman of the National Committee of Helsinki Civil Assembly Arzu Abdullayeva said that for the first time after more than a decade lock, create the conditions for dialogue between civil society representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"However, the authorities are willing to control the process of "public diplomacy." However, this approach is ineffective without the free participation in the dialogue of representatives of various civil society groups," she said.
The meeting decided to hold a broad analysis of the situation of the human rights and freedoms in 2016, and produce a single final document and its publishing.-0-
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President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola has invited Azerbaijani economist and political prisoner Professor Gubad Ibadoglu to Strasbourg to attend the 2024 Sakharov Prize award ceremony. The invitation, delivered by Member of the European Parliament Michael Bloss at the COP29 climate conference, comes as Ibadoglu remains under house arrest and prohibited from leaving Azerbaijan.
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